Direct and Indirect Employee Voice and Firm Innovation in Small and Medium Firms

Abstract

This study adopts an integrated approach to employee voice (EV) and analyses the impacts of direct and indirect EV mechanisms on firm innovation in small and medium‐sized firms separately. It also proposes a new categorization for direct EV, by distinguishing between verbal and written mechanisms, allowing us to take the level of formality of different EV mechanisms into account. The analysis of 17,890 European firms shows that verbal, written and indirect EV mechanisms are all positively related to a higher propensity of firm innovation in both small and medium firms. However, for verbal EV mechanisms the relationship is significantly stronger for small firms than medium firms. The results also reveal that medium firms derive higher benefit than small firms while combining and balancing EV mechanisms with different levels of formalization (i.e. verbal and indirect voice). However, the former also suffers from excessive formalization of employees’ involvement in the innovation process (e.g. through written and indirect voice). Overall, this study supports recent calls for the need to adopt an integrated, pluralistic approach to EV and has important implications for EV research in small and medium firms.

Effect of Employee–Customer Interaction Quality on Customers’ Prohibitive Voice Behaviors: Mediating Roles of Customer Trust and Identification

“…Many scholars analyzed the relationship between consumer complaint behaviors and loyalty and satisfaction ( Raval, 2020 ). Research on consumer voice behaviors currently pays much attention to the effect of employee voice on corporate performance ( Kaufman, 2014 ; Lin and Johnson, 2014 ; Chou et al, 2019 ; Torre et al, 2021 ). Besides, extant research explored the influencing factors of customer voice behaviors including satisfaction, loyalty and right ( Yoon and Kim, 2016 ; Briñol et al, 2017 ; Rather and Sharma, 2017 ; Wan and Li, 2021 ).…”

The relationship between works councils and firms’ further training provision in times of technological change

“…For example, Della Torre et al. (2021) show that employee voice is less formalized in small firms compared to medium firms. A stronger formalization through having a works council could, therefore, have a positive effect on training outcomes.…”

Solidarity in Action at a Time of Crisis: The Role of Employee Voice in Relation to Communication and Horizontal Solidarity Behaviour

“…Yet, social support research is scarce, particularly within the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is a major gap in the literature given that SMEs are extremely vulnerable to external shocks (Prouska and Psychogios, 2018), while at the same time are characterized by informality in the employment relationship and human resource (HR) practices (Psychogios et al, 2016) -which means formal support systems for workers are limited (Della Torre, Gritti and Salimi, 2021;Mallett and Wapshott, 2014). Thus, there is a need for research to focus on whether and how HR practices can support SMEs and their employees in turbulent times (OECD, 2009(OECD, , 2020.…”

“…During an economic crisis, direct communication (firm to employees) about the state of the business has been found to be an important HRM practice in helping staff better understand how crisis is directly affecting them (Teague and Roche, 2014). Particularly in SMEs, where HR practices are highly informal (Della Torre, Gritti and Salimi, 2021; Mallett and Wapshott, 2014), receiving instrumental information during a turbulent period is perceived as an important resource by SME employees (Nyfoudi et al ., 2020). Indeed, the crisis further accentuates the value of top‐down employee communication, which not only promotes closer cooperation between colleagues (Frenkel and Sanders, 2007), but also compels them to find ways to mutually support each other.…”